Joe Fresh is getting dirty looks from suburban moms doing the groceries. Is the new undie campaign – that has subsequently been stripped – kiddie porn, high fashion or some demented publicity stunt? In an article entitled “No excuse for ads that verge on child porn”, The Winnipeg Free Press blasted the campaign and describe the Joe Fresh model to be “at the very start of puberty.”

Her face certainly screams teen, but I know my body didn’t look like that at the onset of puberty. A slight figure? Yes, but she’s definitely a young woman, not a girl. A campaign like this wouldn’t be slagged off if it were H&M or GUESS. Reminds us of the Calvin Klein campaign in the mid-nineties that consumed our Grade 11 Media class, but those girls had barely there breasts and instead of sitting coquettishly on a freezing cold steel stool, they appeared positioned on a couch, primed to be taken advantage of.

Perhaps the problem is that those on the inside circle of Joe Fresh sometimes mistake themselves for high fashion when their audience is really Sunday supper. Is Joe Mimran taking cues from American Apparel? If you look at the top half of the photo the girl appears to be lying on a mattress…ready to pop her virginity. Are the kids at Wrongbar the new Joe Fresh audience? I was under the impression that these cheap duds were more mass market mini van. That said, the mini van type are also the ones that cruise Ashley Madison…not so conservative and innocent as you may think.

Women like to look sexy in underwear, and this is a sexy spread. It doesn’t propel me to protest outside Loblaws with a sign that says “CHILD ABUSE,” but it may cause an eyebrow to be raised in more of a perplexed, “Huh?” But then, I don’t have an impressionable horny daughter who has an eating disorder and succumbs easily to peer pressure. In any case, I need a cheap bra – so next time I think “groceries” I’ll think “sex” and bag my Sunny D with a 34C.